


some people are made to have a home in your heart

by Abbie



Series: a love like gravity [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: (secondary characters only mentioned), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Reluctant Soulmates, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Touch-Starved, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: Tommy Merlyn and Felicity Smoak are strangers until they find themselves bound to each other's souls in the middle of the Queen Consolidated lobby. Neither of them is even a little bit happy about it.
Relationships: Tommy Merlyn & Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn/Felicity Smoak
Series: a love like gravity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661899
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40





	some people are made to have a home in your heart

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this meta au to tumblr a yearish ago and was pretty sure that was how it would live and die. but then i got a prompt, and i wrote for it, and here we are. posting the meta here is just so any of the actual writing i do for this au has a reference point that helps it make sense. i do not bother with consistent capitalization or the petty mortal trappings of standard sentence structure in meta and you can't make me.

**First, the canon divergence:**

So all the pre island shit still happens. Rebecca Merlyn dies when her son is eight years old. Her husband abandons their child to gnash his teeth on a global tour and develop his plan for class warfare and eventual class genocide. Thea Queen is conceived and born. Tommy Merlyn grows up under neglect and contempt as his father manipulates and strong arms his fellow one percenters into committing to his deeply shady undertaking, becoming more criminal and morally bankrupt the deeper they all get into Malcolm’s plan. Oliver Queen grows up lost and misunderstood and acts out as badly as a rich white boy can until he’s looking to sabotage every relationship he has (that isn’t with Tommy) because he doesn’t like himself and doesn’t know who else to be.

Instead of boarding a boat to China that Malcolm sabotages, setting into motion the chain of events that make Ollie into the Hood, the Queen men elect to fly. (Not sure yet how Sara is involved but she probably is; also the flight thing might not be how it goes down) and Malcolm has them kidnapped before they reach the airport.

It’s a huge national story. Billionaire CEO and playboy heir abducted and missing for three weeks. No calls for ransom. No leads. So many tabloid stories being nasty at Moira and about Robert’s history of infidelity.

Meanwhile, Oliver and Robert are held at an obscure facility as both are interrogated and at times tortured, as Malcolm seeks to know how, he believes, Robert is planning to betray him.

Robert gives away nothing, but two weeks in, Oliver is in terrible shape, often tortured to try and break Robert. Robert in their cell does his shitty confession and putting his burdens on his son, making Oliver memorize names and dirty deals and connections and giving him cryptic clues to a cache of incriminating evidence against Malcolm and all the others. Then Robert makes a half assed escape attempt, wresting a gun from a guard and trying to force them to set them free. When it’s clear that won’t work, he apologizes to Oliver and shoots himself in the head, hoping that with no more reason to hold him, they’ll let Oliver go.

Oliver, crazed by grief and days of torture, violently assaults the remaining two captors, disabling one. Little does he realize the authorities have found them and the FBI sweeps in just as Oliver finishes beating a guard to death.

This helps get him into the situation that comes next.

Oliver ends up turning state’s evidence. To protect his mother and sister, to get revenge for his father, and because he is threatened with a trial by agent Amanda Waller.

So, traumatized, changed forever, and on a mission, Oliver can’t bear to return to Starling. When Tommy tries to visit him, before it’s known it was Malcolm behind it all, the encounter goes very badly. Oliver is dark, angry, obsessed. They feel impossibly far from one another. Tommy goes home heartbroken and feeling abandoned again. Oliver pursues revenge disguised as justice. This however leads only to more pain.

Two revelations come at the same time: his mother was as deep in as his father and therefore could be subject to prosecution, regardless of the pressures that put her there. Also, at last, the man behind it all. Malcolm Merlyn, his best friend’s father.

Oliver knows this will destroy Tommy’s life. For that alone he would hesitate. But. But. Malcolm is poison. A monster. And he has only one chance to broker a deal to save his mother, and giving up Tommy’s father is it.

And so, the Undertaking is averted, but its full scope revealed to all. Malcolm is arrested and charged. Oliver could only bring himself to tell Tommy at the last minute. The two are in such hurt and anger they do not speak for the next few years. Still, Tommy does testify at his father’s trial. For the state. He corroborates details and speaks to Malcolm as a father: cold, cruel, exacting and contemptuous. Tommy is dragged in the press plenty on his own. The final nail in the coffin of it all is when Malcolm flies into a rage at the Merlyn house the last day of the trial and almost kills his son.

Malcolm is sentenced to life in prison for numerous crimes, including conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism and attempted murder of his own child. In prison, soon after, he is killed in a prison riot (actually dead or orchestrated disappearance? Who knows.)

Meanwhile Tommy is left to grieve and process and pick up the shattered pieces of his life. The Queens leave Starling, and Oliver becomes almost a hermit to, like, bodybuild and try to psychologically heal and hopefully stay out of Waller’s clutches. Tommy stays in Starling, his trust and assets and inheritance tied up or seized at large by the federal government, the board of Merlyn Global desperately seeking a rebranding or possibly overall firesale, and the city and world in general associates his last name with violent class hatred and corruption.

Years pass. Oliver and Tommy don’t talk. Oliver does not return to Starling. Tommy regains fractions of his fortune over time, maybe opens a business, definitely opens several clinics, charities, and nonprofits across the city. To some he is a hero, a prince of redemption. To others he’ll never shine bright enough to be free of his father’s shadow. Laurel is his good friend and he has been quietly repressedly in love with her for some time, and doing nothing about it.

**Now, the concept:**

Soulmates happen, though they’re referred to as soul bonded. They’re not always romantic relationships. It’s a metaphysical bond between people uniquely suited to understand, support, and be complemented by one another.

Being bonded is not a given. It happens, not infrequently, but not so much so that everyone can assume it will happen to them.

Being bonded also doesn’t mean there can’t be breakdowns in the relationship. It’s still something you have to choose to work at. Being bonded just means really that this is a person so well suited to being a vital part of your life, why _wouldn’t_ you choose to work at maintaining it?

So. The way it works. You encounter a person who is your bond partner in the wild, and a mark appears, typically near the chest region, often over the heart or center of the sternum (anomalies do occur.) You can’t miss it because it appears with a feeling almost like you’ve been branded, and it’s described by those who experience it as an electric current tethering you suddenly to your bond partner. You become hyper aware of them.

To outsiders, the bondmark is unmistakable. They couldn’t draw it or describe it in detail, but there is something visceral in the human brain that recognizes it, and recognizes when they match. Even when directly photographed, this holds true to observers.

In this way, bond marks cannot be copied or forged. They cannot be imitated with tattooing or obscured by scars or burns.

(Because even in stories I’ll never write I go hard on world building.)

The bond does confer certain unique connections. Not like telepathy or viewing through one another’s eyes or walking in dreams. But that hyper awareness of your bond partner doesn’t go away. It’s almost an empathetic awareness. It hums, and it carries non verbal understanding, and it feels most settled and right when the partners are together and spend time with one another as best suits who they both are and the dynamic they establish between them.

New bonds are tricky. They are intense and absorbing, and can even be uncomfortable and strange and almost obsessive at times. This newness can last for a period of typically three to eight weeks. This period is referred to as “settling.”

It’s the time during which the new bond through physical and psychological stimuli encourages the new partners to get to know and become comfortable and familiar with one another.

This is typically characterized as a time when new bond partners have difficulty focusing on things unrelated to their partner for long stretches, and a need to not just be in each other’s presence, but often physical contact. This may mean cuddling, sitting closely, thoughtless, casual intimate touches. Ignoring or denying these settling urges can lead to physical discomfort, anxiety, and emotional and mental distress.

Bond partners who are romantically or just physically suited often get rapidly intimately involved during this period, though that doesn’t always mean it will stay that way, and it’s not a given.

(You can be bonded to more than one person, of course. Multiple people can even be bonded to each other. For now the idea is Flommy but let’s not pretend OT3 isn’t always an option with me and it’s definitely an option this concept allows for.)

That’s the other thing, though. First: bonds do not manifest until after maturity, typically no earlier than age 20.

Second, and this is the thing least understood: bonds most often manifest when mature partners first encounter one another. BUT not always, especially with people who knew each other prior to maturity.

There’s a lot of theories, most popular that the bond manifests when both partners are ready to be bonded, or in other words, have grown into the version of themselves truly suited to their partner. But no one really _knows_. It’s not an exact science.

And plenty of scientific research has indeed been done on soul bonding. There’s a department of the national health organization dedicated to it, legal provisions made for bonded partners, including work and school accommodations for those in the settling period.

(Settling can typically be physically measured through hormones via bloodwork.)

There are societal benefits to bonded relationships after all. Bonded partners tend to be more stable members of society, the possibility of your bonded being anyone promotes empathy, outreach, and social safety nets being extended more broadly, and on the local scale, many studies have shown that bonded partners have a stabilizing, sometimes even calming effect on their immediate social groups and environments.

And of course, there’s plenty of media romanticism of bonded relationships. It’s the biggest subgenre of romance books and films, but is often prevalent in all other genres, especially popular in law enforcement/war story/etc stories.

**Now for the actual story:**

Tommy visits Queen Consolidated one day to try and woo the board into partnering with one of his charities. He leaves uncertain if they will take it as an opportunity for redemptive PR or treat associating with a man named Merlyn like bathing in radioactive waste. On his way out through the lobby, he literally runs into a cute blonde he wouldn’t have really glanced at twice.

And nothing will ever be the same.

The bonding is instant, electric, and undeniable. However, it is also… unwelcome.

Neither of them is remotely happy that it happens.

Tommy is in love with Laurel and has been talking himself into making a real move. This is the worst timing. And bonding or not, the idea of letting someone get close to him like that is terrifying. He has been abandoned and betrayed and discarded his whole life. In his mind, not even a bonding can make someone want to keep him around in any capacity.

And if they do, he would think it was only because they “had to” because that bond. That’s not how bonding works, but it’s a popular and persistent misconception.

And new bonds can put serious strain on preexisting relationships. When opposite sex, attraction-compatible partners are bonded, the general public has a hard time believing it’s not sexual and/or romantic, and even still insecurity and jealousy from nonbonded romantic partners can complicate matters.

So Tommy is exasperated and suspicious and unhappy.

Felicity is no happier, however.

New bondings require mandatory paid leave from work during the settling period and Felicity has been trying to make advancement finally happen in her career at QC. And bonding leave has historically had a more negative effect on women’s career trajectory than men’s.

It’s still our world, unfortunately.

It’s no different than women starting families.

Beyond even just the career implications, however, Felicity has never wanted to be bonded. Not in any way she’d admit to anyways.

Her parents were bond partners. And still her father walked away from them when she was six.

Her mother, when she is drunk and feeling reflective, will admit they were never meant to be romantic partners. He was her best friend. They rarely slept with each other after settling, but it wasn’t never. The pregnancy wasn’t planned. Donna was delighted. Her husband had never wanted children.

And while he loved Felicity, he never really took to fatherhood. The strain broke down their relationship. And even bonded, when you stop communicating, and circumstances are adverse to both partners’ needs being met, and you stop working on your relationship… no relationship is perfect or safe forever from hurt. Not even a soul bonded one.

(Because in my concept, being soulmates isn’t a magical fix for everything. It’s too much an easy button sometimes. I find that dissatisfying.)

Now, what happened between Felicity’s parents isn’t impossible. It’s even understandable, if tragic nonetheless. And her father still made cruel choices in abandoning them and never returning.

But Felicity was six and it hurt her deeply while her ideas of the world were still forming. She decided as she grew up that bonding was bullshit and looking to be bonded so you could feel safe or be happy was asking to get your heart broken, a fairy tale you would be stupid to trust.

So now here she is, bonded to someone whose last name is almost synonymous with domestic terrorism, who doesn’t want to be bonded either, and is in love with someone else. And right when she’s trying to take control of her career, too. Add to that how impossible it will be to maintain her happily anonymous life when bonded to one of Starling’s most infamous sons and none of this looks like a good time.

But you can’t take back a bonding. You can’t undo or break it. Some people are made to have a home in your heart, and the best you could do is evict them and board it up. Still leaves a chamber empty. You can live with it, but you’ll always feel it. And the settling is unavoidable. Even if you choose to never see each other again after, you have to get through settling first.

(You cannot, by the way, be bonded to someone who would truly abuse you. If they would rape or willingly harm you, they’d never be the person so suited to you that you were bound.)

Like there are ways to get through settling on the bare minimum. If both partners are not interested in fostering their connection to its full potential, they can do the least possible to get through settling with minimal discomfort, then simply choose to drift apart and not keep up with each other or stay in contact. (Even then, though, you’re still bonded. Sometimes you’ll just Know something is happening. You’ll feel the urge to reach out, to look in on their life. Hearing about them will always make you pensive for a while. But it’s up to you what to do about any of that.)

Felicity got this far forcefully assuming she’d never be bonded with anyone. Insisting to herself and anyone who asked that she actively didn’t want to be. Tommy had always thought if he bonded with anyone it’d be Oliver. And when that didn’t happen at 20, and things fell out as they did, he assumed… well. He was too broken. Too fundamentally unlovable. Too tainted by the loneliness of his childhood and the selfish monstrosity of his father. His parents weren’t bonded. They chose each other completely on their own, was how his mother put it. He used to think that was even more romantic. As he got older he talked himself into believing it was because of how terrible and cold a person Malcolm was, incapable of bonding equally to anyone at all. Talked himself into believing he must be enough like his father to be similarly incapable of bonding.

(And you know, in every soulmate au I’ve ever toyed with that’s held true. Tommy has always assumed it would be Oliver.)

So when the bond happens to Tommy and Felicity completely out of the blue, two perfect strangers, oh they are pissed. And resistant. They assume they will get through settling and never bother one another ever again if they can manage it.

They want very much to keep it quiet.

That lasts less than a day.

After all, it happened in public. Bondings aren’t entirely commonplace but they’re not rare. If you’ve ever witnessed one, you knew it. That sense of electric connection isn’t imaginary, and at point of contact, can be felt like a ripple by those around the connection. Like holding your hand up to an old tv boxset screen just after turning it off.

All it takes is for someone to follow the feeling back and realize they recognize one of the people now staring at each other with their hands on their chests.

A call to a newspaper or tabloid. _“Tommy Merlyn just got soul bonded in the lobby of Queen Consolidated!”_

The news is spreading before Tommy and Felicity are even properly grappling with it. By the time they’ve had their first conversation and already decided they want to settle quietly and go their separate ways, it’s already a Twitter rumor and the trashiest tabloid in town is putting out speculation about the mystery bond partner of the infamous Merlyn son.

So. Tommy and Felicity don’t get to settle quietly. The first dent in Felicity’s knee jerk hostility towards Tommy is when he immediately works to do what he can to keep her identity concealed once it’s out there that she exists, just not who she is.

Things get complicated fast too. They can’t keep her identity hidden for long at all, though it matters that Tommy tries, and when higher ups at QC find out that the new bond partner of Tommy Merlyn is an employee of theirs (and a bonafide trending topic), it shifts their standing on his proposal for partnership.

He was right that they were leaning towards not partnering with his charity out of a conservative desire to keep the Merlyn and Queen names still separate. It’s only been five years after all. But as interest in Felicity grows it will be impossible to avoid connection since she works there, and if they fired her to try and cover their asses they’d open themselves up to a lawsuit and public backlash. It’s bad optics to make employment decisions based on a person’s bond partner(s), and if provable is illegal in certain circumstances. It’s also wildly unpopular with the public.

So they pivot to cozying up and trying to maximize on it. They’ll do the partnership and even go over the requested funding, but only if Felicity agrees to participate in the PR push. They intend to go with the partnership/redemption/community healing spin.

And won’t it look pretty to partner with a Merlyn charity for lower income health care initiatives with Tommy Merlyn showing up with their employee, much closer to that class than his own, on his arm.

All of this is complicated by the initiative rolling out the pr push during their settling period, a time most new partners choose to stay out of public by and large.

It can be pushed back slightly, but not enough.

So that will be Felicity’s first public appearance as bond partner to Tommy Merlyn, at a donor gala soliciting funding for free clinics and other low income healthcare initiatives.

In the meantime, they have to actually _deal_ with their settling period, and hope they can be balanced enough at the time of the gala not to be petting each other in front of the press corps.

After all, what happens when you have two deeply lonely and desperately touch starved people bonded at the soul level?

Intense need and desire for physical contact.

Most new partners actually move in together during their settling period because need for prolonged physical contact between bond partners is extremely common.

Think Tommy running his hand up and down Felicity’s arm. Felicity absently playing with his hair when they’re alone. And Felicity’s gala dress will have a plunging neckline (showcasing the mark) and an even more plunging back. Tommy will not be able to stop running his hand down her spine. He isn’t even conscious of it most of the time. She hardly is either, just unconsciously leaning into the instinctive comfort of it. But there will be plenty written about it before press time the next day.

The touching starts soon in the settling process. Before they realize it tbh. They’re angrily telling each other they don’t want this and yet they keep touching each other. Hand on her arm to pull her out of the lobby to talk privately. Pushing at his chest to underscore her point. Etc.

He probably guides her to an unused conference room or whatever and she probably immediately ignores him to start unbuttoning her shirt in a panic, looking for her mark, brand new and right smack in the middle between her breasts. Tommy wigs out at that and they’re on the wrong foot from the jump.

(Tommy’s is upper left pectoral. Literally right above his heart)

“Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa, I did not drag you in here for sex, stop undressing!”

“Shut up! I need to see it. Don’t you need to see it? I can _feel_ it. Oh my god. Oh my god, this can’t be happening to me. Do you see it? Tell me this isn’t real.”

They probably argue until the frustrated tears in her eyes lead him to suddenly unbutton his own shirt and prove to them both the marks are real.

But every second since the bonding that electric hum ratchets up til it’s an impossible to ignore itch. They part ways at some point, within hours after, but it’s hardly dark out before Felicity is getting in her car. She tells herself she’s just too damn ansty to be still and needs to go driving. She winds up outside his apartment building without even knowing that’s where she is. He thinks he’s gone downstairs to take a walk and sees her instead.

So Felicity goes up to Tommy’s place once they realize they were literally being drawn to each other. She spends the night there. They talk long into the night, admittedly a lot of it arguing and snarking, but once they’re sitting on the couch with no space between them he starts playing with her fingers without even realizing it. Once they do, they both just watch his fingers toying with hers in loaded silence until she abruptly bursts into tears.

He’s startled, panicking and trying awkwardly to comfort her and please tell him if he did something wrong. But she’s so frustrated with her tears and it’s making her cry harder. She only barely, figuring it out out loud, manages to articulate that she can’t remember the last time someone just _touched_ her like this, and it’s killing her, and she doesn’t want him to stop and that scares her.

And he terrifies himself by nearly crying too because _fuck_ he gets that. He wants so badly for her to just please let him keep touching her like this, because it _hurts_ how much his skin aches to touch another person so simply, just simple human contact, and he’s not sure that’s okay and why would she want to let _him_ touch her, and how do you even ask for things like that without sounding like a creep?

And she doesn’t look at him like he’s evil incarnate, or the son of it. It helps that she moved to Starling after it all happened. She heard about it, but in the abstract way you hear about local taxes going up, or how everyone hates that one sports team.

He was an abstract concept. She didn’t research him or read the articles or follow his big moves into charity work.

He’s just a person to her.

He’s just himself.

Everyone has baggage.

His is just larger scale as far as she’s concerned.

Not that they get into that right away. That first night is still kinda awkward. The getting to know you small talk mixed with late night slumber party deepness interspersed with bouts of silence and a whole lot of cautious casual touching.

But it does make them realize that they’re going to have to deal seriously with being bonded and especially settling.

Whiiiich necessitates certain moves.

First, Felicity has to deal with work. Before the board has moved on their big idea, she puts in her notice of bonding, starting the paperwork to initiate her government mandated settling leave.

The process is completed by a doctor’s note stating that bloodwork shows she is indeed in the settling phase of bonding.

Which precipitates their next stop.

Most hospitals and clinics have specialists for this sort of thing. Not just for bloodwork but for sort of… entrance counseling. They talk to the partners separately, confirm bloodwork, provided documentation legally recognizing the bond, and if the partners choose, they can then also be counseled together. It’s the point at which most people get their questions answered about both being bonded and the settling process.

In his individual session, Tommy is probably asking questions about the practicalities of settling, and how to maintain relationships outside a settling bond, and what to do about being in love with someone else while the bond is making you focus on a different person entirely.

(His doctor, a handsome black man in his later thirties, smiles in amusement at that and reminds him not all bonds are romantic and they are certainly not automatically exclusive of other relationship possibilities.)

But Felicity.

Felicity is after the numbers and statistics. How many bondings go badly, what’s the average length of a settling period, what percentage are platonic vs romantic, and do bond partners who are attraction-compatible always end up romantically or sexually involved or can they remain platonic from the start?

So many questions. Her doctor is a youngish Latina woman, close to 30, maybe a little past, and she takes Felicity’s frenzied questions in stride, patient and reassuring but not condescending. When Felicity asks that last question the conversation veers a bit.

“Do you want the speech I’ve already given you about your continued autonomous freedom to choose and control over your actions? Or do you want more numbers and statistics?”

“Numbers, please. Unknowns bother me. Not like scare me, but they bother me, I just need to know, I need cold, hard numbers. Numbers are trustworthy, numbers are reliable.”

He doctor gives her a tolerantly skeptical look. “The cold, hard numbers it is then. In most studies and surveys, the numbers have been pretty consistent. This doesn’t change anything I said about choice or your control over your decisions, but statistics wise? Typically, for attraction-compatible partners, in all honesty, it’s above 80% odds that the partners at some point become romantically or sexually involved. It doesn’t always remain that way, but that’s the odds of involvement at some point over the lifetime of the bond.”

Felicity gapes. “Eight… eighty percent? _More_ than eighty percent?”

Doc nods. “More than 80%. Of course, that does include brief flings and even oneoff intimate encounters. Are you ready for more numbers?” Felicity gulps and nods. “About 93% of those partners get romantically or sexually involved during the settling period. Even if it never happens again, if it’s going to, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of it being during the most intense period of the bond, while it’s still new and the partners haven’t found their balance quite yet. After all, it’s a very absorbing, intensely emotional period.”

Felicity sits there looking poleaxed. The doc looks at her a little pityingly. “Still prefer those numbers?”

Felicity groans and falls backward on the examination table. “So I’m definitely going to sleep with him? Or, ugh, fall in love with him?”

The doc shakes her head, rolling her eyes heavenward while Felicity isn’t looking. “Not definitely. But it’s a strong possibility.” Felicity muffles a low scream in her forearms. The doc snorts and, when Felicity sits back up, smiles brightly. “But hey, even if it does happen you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant. Protection is still best in all cases, but an aspect of the hormone cocktail that indicates the settling period does preclude the possibility of successful conception.”

Felicity is not really reassured by this.

So Tommy asks the existential questions at the clinic and Felicity asks how screwed (ha) they are by statistics. Neither is feeling particularly awesome about things after their individual counseling sessions but because they are stupid they opt not to also be counseled as a pair.

They’re morons who are resisting the trust and communication aspect of being bonded.

Idk if I’d end up splashing plot around on this thing or just focus solely on the relationship aspect.

Regardless, even if plot, large focus would be on these two getting to know each other during settling and slowly realizing that the bond—and each other—might be exactly what they needed in their lives. It would be hellaaaaa slow burn.

And then there’s the option to expand.

Tommy and Felicity settle before I’d let Oliver butt in, that’s certain. Adding him to the mix too early would be a disaster.

So big focus on Tommy/Felicity relationship development. Lots of talking and cuddling and minor metaphysics. Eventual shift towards the romantic, and its undoubted accompanying angst.

But also possibly some at least minor plot developments in regards to Felicity pushing to further her career, and plenty of entanglement with Tommy’s reputation and unearned notoriety as well as his efforts to make up for his father’s sins by furthering the legacy of his mother’s life’s work.

I’m thinking there miiiight be an incident of some sort at the charity gala.

Not sure if like… an actual attack aimed at Tommy or like disgruntled people going too far.

And I have this line in my head of them like hiding out in a dark spot somewhere and Tommy miserably apologizing for dragging her into his family bullshit. “You were living a normal, safe life until I happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

And Felicity is half ignoring him as she tries to figure out how to help the situation, and just smirks at him wryly. “Please don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the most interesting thing to ever happen to me.”

And of course at some point in the chaos they’ll get separated and it will drive them crazy, frantically searching through the crowd until they find each other. The photo of them clinging desperately to each other once reunited probably makes a few front pages.

Laurel may or may not be there, and Tommy will no doubt end up deeply conflicted about that.

Felicity at some point follows him around on the job with his various charities and nonprofits he’s either started or is deeply involved in and she develops a troubling passion for the work he does. Troubling because she initially wonders if it’s her own passion or something she’s picking up from him.

She starts making mental notes of things that could be improved.

Not on purpose. But when she notices things that could help she can’t just not tell him of course.

And that’s it that’s the meta thus far.


End file.
